Just a click away?

During my childhood my house always used to be bustling with people. We were a large family of four children and there were always a couple of cousins from the native village who stayed in our house for their education. There were lots of friends and relatives who visited us and some of them even used to come to chennai, with our house as the boarding place. It was fun and we enjoyed spending time and chatting with loads of relatives. The house was small, but we still managed to have a great time within the limited space. Now we live in better houses but there are hardly friends or relatives who visit us. Even if they do so, it is just for a couple of hours and they think twice about staying with us and doubt the facilities at home and prefer to stay in hotels and make a flying visit. With active social media, now we are in touch with almost everyone who we never met for years. Though its an advantage of the social media, the downside is that we never take the effort to meet someone in person and spend time. we are happy just clicking the like button and relax that we are in touch with the near and dear ones.
Last week our neighborhood uncle who was very active despite his age died. I remembered him as one who used to sit with the watchmen downstairs and chat with them at particular times of the day. He loved spending the time with them as both his son and daughter in law were working and obviously, was feeling lonely at home. I used to wonder whether anybody in  the family or friends circle even bothered how he was doing while staying alone throughout the day. Personally, it came as a shock to realize that this uncle passed away as I had seen him just a few days back happily chatting with the watchmen. During the death ceremonies, there were a huge number of people who turned up and shared their memories about the uncle. But secretly I wondered whether these people ever managed to give him a call when he was alive and even bothered to check out whether he was doing fine.
This is the fate of the older generation today, they are left alone and the younger generation is happy connecting with a distant cousin or long last friend over social media than care to give a call or visit an ageing uncle or aunty or for that matter, even their own parents living away. I realize with pain that my days of loneliness are not too far away.

Back to the past?

  There is a special section in our newspaper which prints the events that happened on the same date 50 years back. It gives interesting insights into the life and events and reporting style of that era. Recently they had published a photograph in this column where it showed a picture of a bandh protest in Kolkatta in 1964 and the crowd that was waiting to get into the train at Howrah station. Until now , I had the impression that the evergrowing population of India is making life very difficult for the present generation and it would have been better if we were living in a peaceful, manageable population of 1960s and 1970s. But this picture changed my perception. Howrah station of 1964 doesn't look better than a church gate station (Mumbai) in 2014.
Especially, in the past 5-6 years, airports in India are worse than the railway stations and in fact , when you stand at the gate to board your shuttle bus, its more like a moffussil bus stand where the conductor screams his heart out calling our for passengers travelling to small towns. Literally,

at the airport, they call out for passengers travelling to different cities. It sounds funny . In fact, after my first trip abroad in the 80's I was treated like a queen in my friends circle, as I was the only one who had boarded an aircraft among them, now even a new born makes its first trip only by flight.

The discussion with my friend was about this population and commuting problems and after seeing the  60's image in the newspaper , I told her that the situation was worse then too. But then she had an interesting take on the whole problem and she said, maybe it will become better in the future because, now even people in villages and small towns are aware of the benefits of having a small family and restrict themselves to having just one child or two children and situation would only become better as the population would dwindle and more people are settled abroad. I don't know whether its a correct observation but if the situation remains the same, in the future, our children can never board a bus, train or for that matter, even a flight on time.

Mind your language!

We had a small get together at a friend's place who we were meeting after a long time. The children were meeting each other after a long time and as usual were caught up with discussing their routines, pushy parents and of course, the teachers and their quirky manners. I was listening to their conversation with interest and happen to notice their jokes about  their teachers English pronunciations.  Though it was quite funny and they were right about their teachers speaking horrible English with wrong pronunciations and wrong grammar, I thought I myself was not great in these departments of the language. Reason being that I studied in a government aided school and then in a government college where teachers and students were from middle class or lower middle class backgrounds. Our English was not great and our confidence was low. We were scared to try talking in English for the fear of being teased by others.

I vividly remember the instance when a girl who had studied in an English convent earlier, joined our class when we were in 8th std.  She carried herself with great confidence and naturally her English was far better than ours and we all were in awe of her. In fact, she became our automatic choice to represent us for any matter we had to discuss with the teachers.Such was the power of the foreign language and mastery over it. To expect a government school kid to master a foreign language that is being learnt from a non-native speaker and have impeccable pronounciation is next to impossible. It might be easier when children study in international schools. But why do we have this mindset that speaking a language with perfect pronunciation (even pronouncing this word is difficult for a non-native speaker) is equal to great knowledge in the language?All of us have come across people who speak the language with bad pronounciation but have profound knowledge in its literature and those who have great pronounciation but know nothing about its literature or do not appreciate its beauty.
My father himself was a great example of a man who had terrific knowledge in various languages like English, German, Sanskrit, Hindi and Tamil, was very well versed in all the languages, spoke them perfectly albeit with an indianized pronounciation. But never was he looked down by native speakers who appreciated his vast knowledge. Actually foreigners feel happy when we speak their language despite our bad pronunciations. It gives us the same pleasure when a foreigner speaks our mother tongue, it might not be perfect, but still we appreciate their effort and feel proud that they speak our language than looking at how perfect they are at it.
I think we should realize that all the Indian teachers who speak English
have not learnt it from native speakers to have impeccable pronunciation and its their knowledge that should matter.

Crafty christmas

School days were a nightmare for me , not for academics but for the arts and crafts classes. I never had the natural gift for arts, drawing or craft work. While so many of my classmates enjoyed these classes and thought it was nice a break from the routine boring subjects, for me, personally, it was a nightmare as I could never draw a straight line even with the scale and not stitch or do the various embroidery work that was taught in the school. During holidays when all my friends were busy pursuing their artistic skills attending drawing classes and sewing classes, I was happy playing in the hot sun or snuggle up with my favourite books.  I always thought all these craft work could be just a time pass and never a serious enough to make a living out of it. But now with age and maturity , I understand, one should be talented or gifted and hardworking as well to be good craftsman.
Bandra is so full of these crafty decorative materials during Christmas that I enjoy going around the small by lanes to just watch the various dolls and decorative items that are used  for Christmas decorations. In fact every small shop and bigger showrooms too actually remove their regular showcase materials and place these small dolls of Jesus Christ and the scenes depicting his birth. Even a traffic jam at the junction of these shops become an enjoyable experience with people, kids included busily clicking pictures of these cute doll arrangements and colourful decorations. Looking at the expressions on the face of the passers by I realise how much one should be gifted to make these dolls that brings joy to so many irrespective of the strata of the society they belong to. Kudoz to all those who are actually making a living being craftsmen.

To dye or not to dye

Being in the middle age, even though I have not inherited my father's mental abilities or my mother's cooking skills, I am happy that at least I am genetically blessed to have black tresses from my parents. Both started greying quite late in life and my hair has just started turning grey in patches. But the inherent fear that grey hair is an indicator of age makes me pull them out whenever I get the chance. But my daughters and husband are of the strong opinion that one has to age gracefully and accept these signs of ageing with dignity.  I am trying to convince myself that dyeing my hair is not yet an option and its a big question whether I would be comfortable using a chemical dye or herbal dye that is available in the market since I am not a great fan of the wide variety of cosmetics available in the market. In fact I feel so uncomfortable applying make-up that  I turned out without make-up even on my wedding day.  So, to dye or not to dye my hair is a big question I have to face in the near future.

I have fallen into the habit of observing people around  me for signs of age (quite a popular pastime in the middle ages , I guess) and amazed at the urban middle class population who are not shy of using any amount of cosmetics to make them look younger. Other day, I was waiting with my husband to see his doctor at the nearby hospital and the one hour of waiting period made me realize that there was not a single person in the waiting area with grey hair though the majority of them were above 60. Even the doctor himself, who I guess should be more than 50 didn't have a single strand of grey hair. But the most amusing part of this observation was that even though people are trying their best to hide their age behind the dyes, I could still guess that they were not young. Every filmstar you see including thespian Dilip Kumar to haggard Sanjay Dutt to ever fit Kamalahaasan strut around proudly with thick black tresses.  But we know that they are no longer young but still they want us to believe that they are young. More than any other cosmetic, I think hair dyes are the most popular and widely consumed ones irrespective of the gender and hope one day there is some survey regarding this.
Southern cinestar Ajith Kumar seems to be one exception in this crowd who has happily settled for his salt and pepper look and is even daring enough to take up roles which suit this look rather than the other way round. Hope I get the same courage to face the world with my shining grey hair ala Medha Patkar, the social activist and not think about these things as important than fighting for a social cause. Hope I get that maturity and dignity few years down the line.

Democracy for rapists?

Past few months, especially since the infamous Delhi rape case last December, Indian media has been relentless in exposing rape cases , not even sparing the high and mighty involved in them. From Asaram Bapu to Tehelka editor now, there are endless stories everyday. I feel, women are more forthcoming now a days and are becoming bolder  to go against the mighty and powerful if they have been wronged. Kudoz to these women who have the guts to do so. But women being abused dates back to centuries and even Sita from Ramayan and Draupadi from Mahabarat are no exceptions. At least one woman in every Indian family is sexually abused by her own husband or uncles or cousins or family friends.

I, personally, was disturbed by a piece of article by an Indian dignitary's wife on how she was sexually abused by a visiting international dignitary and how she could never come out in the open for years about the abuse and had to carry on with her normal life as though nothing had happened. If a high profile woman has to undergo this, imagine the plight of millions of women belonging to middle class and lower strata of the society.  My own childhood experiences were so traumatic that I am too scared about the security of my daughters. I am scared to allow them to travel alone in public transport or stay overnight at even a close friend's or relative's house. You never know who could misbehave with them.

How can we put an end to this trauma? I feel its time India stopped being proud of being a democratic country. Justice is never on time here. I feel, we should just follow the model of Arab countries to punish the guilty.  Once proven guilty, the culprit should be punished in full view of the public. This would create fear in the minds of the wrong doers. Till such time I can only pray that my girls return home safely and every other girl on the street is smart enough to protect herself.

Trip down the (memory) lane!

I spent a greater part of my  childhood days in a particular locality in chennai and  although I have lived in various parts of the country now, still love to go to my favorite childhood locality and see how many of my childhood friends, uncles and aunties and other known faces are still there. All these years I didn't get the opportunity to do so. But during the recent stay in Chennai, I managed to visit the locality and was shocked to see the rapid development there. It was saddening to see that all the open spaces and sprawling bungalows have given way to innumerable shops and hotels and boutiques and high rise flats. I was trying to find at least one house or building that retained its original structure that would bring back my sweet childhood memories. But sadly none was there.

I was behaving like a lost child and was standing in the same street where I grew up like as though I never knew the place. It was heart wrenching and was like losing one part of my self. Not a single face I could recognise, not a single soul to say "hey, how are you? seeing you after a long time". I was heart broken on my return. Suddenly there was a heavy downpour for about fifteen minutes , as though skies were crying with me.  And I had to wade through knee deep water to walk back and was pleasantly reminded of my childhood days when we had to literally carry our school bags on our heads and walk in knee deep water to reach the bus stand to go to school. This experience of walking again in knee deep water brought a smile to my face and felt relieved that at least there is one aspect to the locality that has remained the same for years.
But the realization that development is not only about razing down old structures and constructing new ones but also involves infrastructural developments like sufficient water, electricity , sewage , drainage and good roads struck me hard.People are interested in developing their own space and don't think of collective development of the area and politicians are busy making money in their short tenure and not interested in the larger good of the community. Till they do so, our hardships due to lack of infrastructure would remain the same for years.